CPI(ML) Liberation General Secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya has written to Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin, urging urgent intervention in support of the sanitation workers of Chennai Corporation.
The workers, organised under the banner of Uzhaippor Urimai Iyakkam, affiliated to LTUC and AICCTU, are demanding permanent jobs and an end to the outsourcing of sanitary work to private contractors. They are predominantly women from the most oppressed and deprived sections of society, whose labour is indispensable yet undervalued.
In his letter dated 17 August 2025, Dipankar Bhattacharya reminded the Chief Minister that the All India Central Council of Trade Unions (AICCTU), affiliated with CPI(ML) Liberation, has a long record of fighting for unorganised and precarious workers, and is also a committed participant in the nationwide Save Constitution, Save Democracy campaign. He emphasised that on Independence Day, sanitation workers themselves had pledged to defend India’s independence, Constitution, and democracy, thereby linking their struggle for livelihood with the broader democratic struggle against fascist assaults.
Appealing directly to the Chief Minister, the letter noted that his government enjoys considerable goodwill for its professed ideals of social justice and welfarism, and therefore, as a part of the INDIA alliance, CPI(ML) Liberation has requested his urgent personal intervention for an amicable resolution of the issues in consultation with the sanitation workers and their union, Uzhaippor Urimai Iyakkam, affiliated to LTUC and AICCTU.
The party underlined that the sanitation workers’ struggle is not merely about wages or contracts, but about dignity, social justice, and democracy.
